The worlds of Rainer Werner Fassbinder are atypical
reflections of reality, slightly eccentric visions in which environmental
agency, in all its forms, either machinates or mirrors their inhabitants’ own
abnormalities.Favoring to caress rather
than penetrate the internal workings of his characters, the ill-fated director
seems more comfortable in exploring–and not in mere aesthetic fashion–the
more afferent aspects of human ecology, projecting how his players adapt, sometimes
unsuccessfully, to social stimuli from both sides of the liminal
threshold.To be sure, such a reductive
statement, on my part, is at once a mindfully vague and ultimately
too-constraining a tenet for a man of such prolificacy (over 40 films in 15
years), but the dynamic between character and cultural imposition is something
that can be detected both spatially (the intricate framing of The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant) and
existentially (the willful victimization of the protagonist in Fox and His Friends) throughout his
oeuvre.What’s more, his films can also
come in the form of latently personal, empathetic entreaties.In a
Year with 13 Moons, to cite a masterful example, is at once a beautiful and
tragically forthright essay on, among other things, how a life’s joy is
conscribed by others’ cruelty.More
specifically, that particular output shows Fassbinder attempting to put a
logical face to the suicide of his lover, Armin Meier–as if there’s catharsis
to be found in his lucidly tortured dialectic.

Apropos then is how Fassbinder’s made for television foray
into science fiction, World on a Wire,
allows the director to channel his nurture-centric worldview into a fittingly
augmented take on reality.Aside from
the aesthetic flourishes–which often braid gaudy futurism with the false
promise of neon warmth–peripheral players feel as if they’re shown through an
eerie sort of sheen, a translucent aura that highlights individual difference,
perhaps even in contrast to our own social homogeny.Regardless, there’s a certain distance that can
be felt emanating from each character.Fassbinder
formally plays up such distinctions, as his camera here (aided by
cinematographers Michael Ballhaus and Ulrich Prinz) is a device of balletic
spatial inquest, often exploring the barriers erected between others and the
self. Interpersonal dynamics are
choreographed in a way that underscores artificial intervention within the
modern world, for some sort of technological partition, be it a phone or
reflective surface, usually acts as a screen dividing the perceptions of
characters.This gesture not only speaks
to the illusion of personal realities but also paints existence as something
more multi-dimensional than what it’s typically construed to be–in film
especially.

These boundaries are obviously not of arbitrary design, and
they even seem modeled in congruence to the picture’s broader themes.Early in the film, Professor Henry Vollmer (Adrian
Hoven)–the head of a project that’s essentially a slightly less substantial
replication of our own reality, which is in turn used predict our own en masse behavioral patterns–denounces
another’s identity by saying, “You’re nothing more than an image others have made
of you.”Such a statement works in a
bifold manner, smartly laying the foundation for the film’s sci-fi implications
(that reality may, in fact, be illusory) and bringing to light Fassbinder’s
fascination with social influence (that we have little control over our sense
of self).These two issues naturally imbricate
throughout the picture’s 212-minute running time, but they don’t coalesce
wholly.Rather, the relationship between
these elements is ultimately more symbiotic than synthesized, with the pair
each complimenting the other but more in way of cursory strokes.Fassbinder’s main focus seems to be in
infusing the environments he creates with veins of these overarching ideas, making
gentle allegorical and spoken allusions to the confinement inherent to certain
societal structures.From early in the
picture, the filmmaker makes it a point to group characters in a something of a
functional sense, categorically painting scientists as stoic idealists and,
conversely, capitalists as rationalists–just voracious ones.The main dramatic current, then, is in watching
these two sides leverage for control–which they do, at least by way of human
surrogates–a struggle of power that’s relayed to the public through members
of the media.Though a simplification,
this societal tripod outlines our entrenched dependence on systemization.World
on a Wire’s overarching sci-fi premise, which will go unspoiled here,
accepts this conceit, as the greatest misfortunes within the film seem to
befall those guilty not of personal slight, but of challenging accepted social
institutions.

Despite a rather familiar, perhaps even flimsy narrative
approach, and moreover, a disinterested introspective pose–action and ambiance
take precedent over the cognitive processes of characters–Fassbinder laces
his film with myriad worthy philosophical inquiries, many relating to the idea
of a creator, and by extension, creationism.Through World on a Wire, he
presents reality as something defined by limits, limits beyond which purer, but
perhaps less ornamental, truths lie.“It’s obvious,” begins one digital soul, “What can’t exist
doesn’t.”Fassbinder seems content in
positing that worlds are bound by both social constrictions and physical laws
alike, and paints these guiding forces in a similarly absolute sense.But his evocations also leave room for
mysticism. Ambiguity is of constant
reference throughout the work, and a somewhat affirming tenor emerges by
picture’s end.It appears that
Fassbinder’s implications not only justify, and somewhat hopefully at that, the
possibility of a transcendent existence but also how expressive the miniatures
we create can be.That the phrase, “A
tiny universe inside our own,” is used to describe the story’s
computer-simulated reality is innately telling.The cinema, and art in general, is our own society’s micro-world, a
proportional recreation of our existence that we use to learn about ourselves,
our cultural conditions, and especially our lives.World
on a Wire is saturated with this kind of ideological posturing.Not all of its paranoid projections form
complete conceptual circuits, but such loose ends do more to evoke our collective,
human uncertainty than something of shoddy craftsmanship.

Transfer

All things considered, World
on a Wire looks sublime on Criterion Blu-ray.A keen feel for consistency is detected
throughout the work, rendering the germanely harsh 16mm visuals within a convincing
tonal context.Texture, though not of
particular interest to Fassbinder, is evident and allots the viewing experience
a sensorial flair.But damaged prints
are a reality and one of sporadic relevance here.In consolation, such instances aren’t
prominent and it’s not long after experiencing one that we can become lost
again in the picture’s disorienting architecture and eerie fluorescent glow.The transfer, in its quintessence, is stable
but flat, evocative but, due to practical limits, not wholly arresting.

Extras:

Though not a substantial collection of supplements, this
Criterion package does include enough elucidatory extras to be recommended–as
if the film wasn’t reason enough.A
fifty-minute documentary and a thirty-minute interview sum up the digital
special features, while the compulsory booklet offers an essay by Critic Ed
Halter.